Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop
If not 125K, what is the right amount? If I were selfish I'd want something higher, so I can benefit from it for my almost 8 year old son, but we've also been saving for his college since he was born and I understand some people don't have that luxury.
I definitely think trades are the best choice for some people, and we need more people going into those fields.
I'm really conflicted about this subject.
Two months ago my wife and I just finished ten consecutive years of college education for our three girls (two kids in school for a couple of the years). We were fortunate, but also purposeful, in getting each of them through in four years.
We paid their tuition, books and room and board. The total tab was just under $350,000.
Would it be nice to have the $350,000 back in my bank account? Sure. But we considered it a worthy investment. I don't think its possible to come out of school with $120-150,000 in debt, start working at beginning wages, and make it in this country. You are always, at a minimum, going to be at least ten years behind where you need to be in terms of saving for a down payment on your own home, saving for assisting with your own kid's college, saving for retirement, etc... We weren't willing to put the girls behind the eight ball like that when we could afford to pay it.
But I also understand that our situation may be more unique than some others. A substantial percentage of families simply would have no ability to do what we did.
I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think I've heard it proposed yet. And that's because I don't think we've focused on what the real problem is. We seem fixated on inability to afford college as the problem, but the real problem is the cost of college.
If we focus on the inability to pay by basically having someone else pay for the kids/families if their income is low enough, by handing out grants, or any of those similar "payment" style assistance ideas, not only don't we solve the real problem, but much like health care and health insurance in this country, we probably exacerbate it. When you have one party selling a product, one party receiving the product, and a third party paying for the product, like in the healthcare industry the "free market" doesn't always work to keep prices competitive.
I'm a huge believer in advanced education, although it isn't for everyone. But I'd really like to see us focus on why college costs what it does, and what can we do to fix that, before we just start throwing more money at them through tuition assistance or subsidies.
